Public Accounts Committee on May 18th, 2023

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

In collaboration with our partners, yes.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Right, so I'm curious as to how it's going to happen, because that's a little over six years from now.

Last year, completed new houses or housing units built in Canada were at 200,000, and that's about the average over the last few years. In order for you to produce 3.5 million more houses by 2030, the completion rate is going to have to be 875,000 houses per year. That's 675,000 more than we're completing now.

Can you tell me how, between this year and next year, we will jump from 200,000 completed housing units to 875,000?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

The main point that I want to start off with is that housing is not just a federal responsibility. We have a role. We have a leadership role. We have a resource role to invest. We have a partnership role, but we're not the only players in this space.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I understand that. It's just that you said that through all those partnerships we would get the 3.5 million, and I just don't see it, because that's basically a tripling of the annual completed houses here. I don't think we're going to get there, and I don't see any path in this, particularly when you see the performance of the national housing program that the Auditor General has laid out.

For example, the Auditor General found that in the program that funds housing placement or “housing placement activities”, you've reached only 30% of the goal, and the goal has to be completed within the next year or so. In other words, in the next year or so, you have to find 94,000 new placements in order to actually be successful in that program, and you haven't come close to that in a single year. The program is a failure.

It says that 31% is the target that you've set for reducing chronic homelessness by next year, but by previous testimony just in this meeting, it's already gone up 12%. It hasn't gone down by 31%. You now have to reduce chronic homelessness by almost 50% in one year. Where is all this money going? It's going in but no results are coming out.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Chronic homelessness and homelessness in general are two different things. We have committed to cutting chronic homelessness in half by 2027-28 and then eliminating chronic homelessness by 2030. That's our focus.

Of course, our programs, and the 5,000 projects that I mentioned, are available to anyone who's either experiencing homelessness or at risk of experiencing homelessness. It's the same thing with the rapid housing initiative. The key to our focus is chronic homelessness.

For example, even among the veteran population—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

It's so effective that it's going up. It's not going down. It's going the wrong way. You've spent, I believe, $138 million already on this—I think that's the number or something more than that—and it's not going anywhere. It's going the wrong way.

Tell me how, in the next year—because 31% is the target you set for next year—it's going to go from increasing by 12% to down by 31%? That's what the Auditor General report says is your target next year.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

First of all, we had a once-in-a-lifetime event called the pandemic that we went through. I'm glad that our investments were able to save lives among people experiencing homelessness. They were able to get more PPE. They were able to get more spaces. They were able to procure—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

These trends were there before COVID. COVID is not the reason that homelessness continues to go up.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Look, I'm trying to finish my answer.

I'll just end by saying that we recognize it's a problem. We are committed to a program to end chronic homelessness. You don't even have homelessness in your plan. You have a housing plan that doesn't even have the word “homelessness” in it.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Gentlemen, that is the time.

Ms. Yip, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for coming. I have to say that it's not usual to have a minister come to the public accounts committee, so I thank you for coming and answering our questions.

In my riding of Scarborough—Agincourt, we have one of the last remaining pandemic-started shelters. It has 350 units. What can be said to some of the residents and businesses that have been impacted by the shelter and, at the same time, to others who are concerned about the state of homelessness?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I think it's important to recognize that when people are taken off the street and are provided permanent housing solutions, they tend to do better. They restart their lives. They have stability. Their health improves. They're able to go back to work or to school, or to pursue a business opportunity and so on.

It's not only better for that community but also better for all of us. Those individuals tend to have fewer interactions with the criminal justice system, with the law enforcement system, with the health care system. Overall, as a society, it is not only humane and proper to house homeless individuals but also better for our long-term fiscal framework. In other words, society does better when we are all doing better.

By the way, those shelters are supposed to be a temporary solution. They're not meant to be a permanent housing solution for those individuals, but they're necessary. They're supposed to be a stage in a continuum of providing permanent housing, eventually, for individuals. That's why I think the rapid housing initiative—which has, by the way, delivered a number of really good, affordable units in Scarborough—is so effective. It gives people the next stage of permanent housing beyond shelters.

The last time I was in Scarborough to announce a rapid housing project, the neighbourhood initially had some concerns, but the people came around. These were, in particular, rapid housing units dedicated to men experiencing addictions and mental health challenges. People recognized that these men—this population of people who were sleeping on the streets—were better off in permanent housing with the right supports around them, and it was not only better for them but also better for the community.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

In the report, there was some mention of challenges in data collection. Could you, or maybe another associate, speak to that?

[Kelly Gillis]

Thank you for the question.

The time of the audit was during the COVID period. The non-profit organizations in the homeless-serving sector were dedicated to saving the lives and protecting the health of the clients they were serving and could not provide the data at that time.

Since that time, they've started to recoup and are providing us with data and working with us on the data collection. We've done point-in-time counts with 55 communities across the country. By fall of this year, they will be completely caught up on their cycle of reporting on data, and they have already started reporting up until 2022 on the results that they achieved.

This gets back to the 5,000 projects we talked about: the 87,000 people who were prevented from becoming homeless, the 46,000 people who are placed in permanent housing, as well as a number of other supports like job training, new paid employment, education, temporary placements. Those are some of the differences that this particular program has made.

We've now been able to work with community entities. We have 60 of them across the country that we fund, and 43 of them have put coordinated access in place, where they have no wrong door for the clients they're serving. They can go to one place and they can be provided with all of the services they need. That particular community entity will find the right support for them to help their trajectory in life. That is making a big difference in communities right now.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

One recommendation was to finalize the implementation of the online reporting platform. Has this been done? Can you tell us a bit more about what this is all about?

[Kelly Gillis]

That particular platform was put in place in the fall of last year. That is the system that community entities can use in a very efficient way to give us results in a timely way. That's how we collected the data on the 5,000 projects. That is now a way that community entities can save time, energy and effort and direct their capacity to actually serving the clients, but at the same time being accountable and transparent in the difference they're making in their communities.

That particular system is now in place. It's effective and being used and reported on.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Chair, do I have more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You have time for a question, yes.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Okay.

Minister, I know you touched upon working with municipal governments, but how about the provincial governments?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

We indeed do work with all orders of government. We welcome those partnerships.

Through the national housing strategy, for example, we fund provincial priorities, which includes federal money to help provinces maintain, renew and rejuvenate their community housing stock and build new units.

I think the rapid housing initiative is a good example of where the federal government provided 100% capital, and then the provinces, or in some cases a particular non-profit or municipality, provided the wraparound supports for people who were experiencing homelessness and who were given permanent housing solutions.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, the floor is yours for two and a half minutes.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Minister, for being here today.

My husband is a supply teacher in the Gatineau region, and yesterday he came home and told me that he had contributed to a fundraiser. The teachers at a school were chipping in so that a special education technician who was a mother of two could pay her rent, which has gone up so much that she can't even do that anymore.

For a while now, I've been hearing you talk about programs over five to seven years, building millions of housing units, massive targets, but what are you doing to help that individual who's unable to pay her rent right now? Obviously, there are many other issues. Her salary may be too low, and that's a provincial jurisdiction.

However, you do have tools at your disposal, Mr. Minister. One of them is to create an acquisition fund, which we've suggested to you several times. In fact, some provinces have already acted on this. It's about acquiring housing from the private sector and renting it out at an affordable price. It would be a meaningful solution you could apply today, not three, five or seven years from now, to help people in this situation.

What are your thoughts on the federal government creating an acquisition fund?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Quebecers struggling with the cost of rent need help. We've invested $454.3 million to provide 145,000 Quebec households with monthly assistance under the Canada-Quebec housing agreement.

We're also taking action by providing an additional $500 to those and other eligible families. This amount will be paid to 1.8 million Canadians, including 467,000 Quebec households.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You have enough time for a very short question.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Are you following up on those numbers, Mr. Minister?